Saturday, August 7, 2010

Confluence of Idea & Object

I was walking to the Wine & Spirit store to reward myself for a day well spent, when there on the sidewalk outside 16 Below at the corner of Passyunk and Tasker were some strange and wonderful objects. Still only partially assembled, even incomplete they asserted themselves as beautifully crafted works of art--constructed from black iron and galvanized pipes, nipples & elbows & joints, from auto wheel disks polished and gleaming, decorative glass, record turn tables... all Found Things! The artist, Steven Evans, was unloading sections from a truck and fitting them together as lamps and lighting fixtures.

I love Found Things--freed from the tyranny of fixed contextual identity--or as Levi Bryant would say, from their former regimes of attraction, they call out with potential hidden powers irresistible for anyone with a creative mind and unbiased eye... art lying in wait for the artist, and in Steven Evans these objects have found someone with the skills and vision to bring them together as something new in the world.

Evans doesn't yet have a web page (he says they're working on it), so I can't link images, but they will be displayed in the Tasker window of 16 Below tonight, be on the sidewalk for the funky historic and custom car show on Passyunk tomorrow (Sunday, August 7).

If you can get to South Philly, come see these wonderful pieces. Every work of art is a spark of hope--and when emerging from Found Things--a powerful reminder of what it means to "make new" the objects of our received world.